Chronology has discovered some contradiction in the date of this
extravagant law; the only one, perhaps, by which the
negligence of magistrates is punished by death and
confiscation. M. de la Bastie (Mem. de l'Acedemie, tom. xv.
p. 98) conjectures, with a show of reason, that this was no
more than the minutes of a law, the heads of an intended
bill, which were found in Scriniis Memoriae, among the
papers of Constantius, and afterwards inserted, as a worthy
model, in the Theodosian Code.